TCM Film Festival: Day One - "Airport" and "The Wild One"

by Christopher James

The only thing more disasterous than a gang of bikers or a bomb threat on a plane is light rain in Los Angeles. All joking aside, it's always great to return to the Hollywood and Highland center for another year of the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival.

The festival was kicked off with a red carpet screening of a freshly restored Rio Bravo, with Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson and Angie Dickinson as special guests. The opening night film is part of WB's 100 year anniversary, which will be a theme of the weekend with many of the celebrations. Rather than watch Howard Hawks' epic western, I opted to fill a couple other blind spots...

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Showbiz History: Quiz Show scandal, a Golden Globe twist, and Turning Red tease

7 random things that happened on this day, March 11th, in showbiz history

1958 Charles Van Doren loses on the game show "Twenty-One" an event that causes a huge scandal when the public realizes it was a fix. This event is detailed in the 1994 Best Picture nominee Quiz Show with Ralph Fiennes as Charles Van Doren.

1964 The 21st Golden Globes were held honoring the films of 1963...

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Smackdown '70 Companion Podcast Pt 1: "MASH" and "Airport"

Nathaniel R welcomes Mark Blankenship, Dan Callahan, Denise Grayson, Lena Houst, and Bobby Rivers to talk 1970 at the movies

Pt 1 (35 minutes)
You've read our takes on the five Supporting Actress nominees of 1970, now let's talk the movies they're in. On the first half of the podcast we discuss "cheese with wings" Airport (1970) and what it wrought at the movies and the Oscars. Who was the MVP among its actresses: Helen Hayes? Maureen Stapleton? Jean Seberg? Jacqueline Bisset? We then turn our attention to another smash hit M*A*S*H (1970) and both its modern filmmaking and its misogyny.

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Pt One: MASH and Airport (1970)

Smackdown '70: Maureen, Helen, Lee, Sally, and Karen Black

Presenting Oscar's Chosen Supporting Actresses of the Films of 1970. The Academy welcomed back one enduring icon (Helen Hayes), two of the eventual giants of this particular category (Maureen Stapleton and Lee Grant), and two new stars of the moment (Sally Kellerman and Karen Black).

THE NOMINEES  

Their characters were a devastated soon-to-be widow, a sneaky old lady flying the friendly skies, a pregnant waitress confused by her man, a wealthy "liberal" snob who is more conservative than she thinks, and a disciplined but highly excitable military nurse. 1970's supporting shortlist was more "pure" than the category often is now (only Karen Black could be argued as a lead... but she's on the borderline so it's fine) but how strong were the roles and how good the work?

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Vintage '70 - Marinate in it!

The Supporting Actress Smackdown 1970 Edition arrives in three weeks (we've moved the date to May 13th) so as we approach and you vote (hint hint), let's talk context in movies and entertainment... 

Great Big Box Office Hits: When it comes to box office, there are a lot of competing sources about what films were massive hits prior to the internet era when tracking success became such a cultural activity. But all sources basically agree that there were five true behemoths at the movies in 1970. The top four were the tearjerker Love Story, the all-star disaster flick Airport, the Altman comedy MASH, and the war drama Patton (remarkably they made up 80% of the Best Picture list... though prior to the 1980s it's always worth reiterating that the public had much more Oscary taste in their movies -- it was public taste that changed, not really the Oscar aesthetic... contrary to much of the grousing you here online about Oscar shunning hits and preferring underseen critical darlings). The fifth consensus smash hit was the Dustin Hoffman Christmas release Little Big Man which scored only 1 nomination from the Academy for Chief Dan George in Supporting Actor; he was the first Native American to score an Oscar nomination in any category!

Chief Dan George in "Little Big Man"Beyond that quintet the details about which films were big hits gets fuzzier though various sources also list some, though never all, of these movies:  Ryan's Daughter, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Chariots of the Gods, The Aristocrats, Joe, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, the documentary Woodstock, and the musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.

Oscar's Best Picture Nominees: Airport (10 noms / 1 win), Five Easy Pieces (4 nominations),  Love Story (7 noms / 1 win), MASH (5 noms / 1 win), and Patton (10 noms / 7 wins). Our theory as to what was just outside the Best Picture shortlist plus more '70 goodies follow...

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